Numerical verification for a new type of UV disinfection reactor

Abstract

Abstract The traditional biological method applied to the CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) analyses of ultraviolet (UV) disinfection reactor associates problems such as the long experimental period and complicated process. However, the paper proposes a CFD verification for a new UV disinfection reactor. The UV dose of UV disinfection reactor in different inlet flow rates and diverse UV powers are simulated and analyzed by the ANSYS-Fluent; a separate Fortran program is made for UV dose calculations. The H2O2 solution is added to the reactor model for the · O H (hydroxyl radical)absorbance experiment and numerical results of reactor are evaluated. It is concluded that the method of detecting · O H absorbance photolysis products by imposing H2O2 solution can verify the accuracy of CFD simulation. It can be applied to the design process of UV disinfection equipment. The radiation intensity near the light source is the strongest parameter. With an increase of radial distance, the UV light intensity shows an exponential decay. The UV dose can be increased by reducing the inlet flow and increasing the lamp power. However, results indicate that the adjustment of flow rate at the entrance is superior to increasing the power of UV lamp.